Although I’m going to focus on your products, this also applies to your content. If it seems like it’s going to be hard to find the information a reader is looking for, they’re going to try one of the thousand other options out there.

Now back to your product, what might a potential customer think is difficult?

It looks like it might be difficult to get the product shipped

The reviews are varied, so it seems like the product is hit and miss

They can’t find what they’re looking for easily in your product results (a big issue for large e-commerce stores)

The takeaway: More choices usually aren’t better. Limit choices to the most popular options.

How to keep your potential customers from getting overwhelmed: The main way to apply this principle to your business is on your sales pages. I am talking about specifically those that have multiple things a customer could buy.

To apply it, reduce the number of choices.

For most businesses, offering anywhere from 3-5 choices is usually optimal, but you can test what number would work best for you.

An example of this is the Crazy Egg sales page. There are four plans that a customer could choose from, and they are laid out really simply for ease of comparison:

3. Sometimes, being innovative can kill your conversions

At one point or another, every marketer wants to innovate.

Innovation is a good thing! It’s the process of improving upon what we already know.

But it can also be dangerous, mainly because of the law of past experience.

What this law basically says is that when people see something for the first time, they interact with it based on their previous experiences.

For example, if they get a new book, they’re going to try to read it from left to right. However, it could be a book that is read from right to left. Past experiences shape expectations.

At first, you might not see how this connects to your sales, but I promise you it does.

How innovation can hurt your business: Let’s go over a quick experiment that illustrates this principle clearly.

However, in a followup study, they tweaked the phrasing of the first option. Now, they gave the option of “losing $20.”

It still meant the same thing (they’d end up with the same amount of $30), but now, subjects were reminded that they had to give some money back.

Essentially, it was the exact same experiment, but the results were different.

In the first experiment, only 43% of subjects took the gamble, but in the second, 61% took the gamble.

People were more willing to gamble to avoid losing a portion of the money for sure.

Give your customers a chance to lose your product: In order to apply this principle to increase your sales, you need potential customers to feel like they already own your product.

Then, you need to take it away unless they purchase it. In most cases, this will cause a significant increase in sales.

There are three main ways you can use this.

First, add videos of someone using your product. Add voiceovers or text that clearly state that the person in the video owns the product.

When we watch others, we subconsciously picture ourselves in their situation.

Secondly, you can offer free trials liberally. Many online businesses have recognized the power of this.

For example, Buffer offers a no obligation 30-day free trial:

After someone uses a product for that long, they’ll feel like it’s theirs and will become invested in it.

At the end of the trial, users will be much more likely to pay for it because they’ll feel they are otherwise losing it.

Finally, pay special attention to the language you choose.

When you put products on sale, don’t say “get 20$ off.” Instead, say something like “buy now or lose the opportunity to save $20.”

6. The big red button always wins

We’ve looked at a few principles that have basically demonstrated that people are lazy and usually look for the easiest option.

But there’s one more principle that shows us how to take it into account.

It’s called Fitts’ law.

While you don’t need to know it for it to be useful, the law is actually a model that can be used to determine the amount of time it takes to perform an action.

But this post isn’t about physics or mathematics, so don’t worry about understanding the formula.

The only variables you need to pay attention to are the “T”, “D,” and “W.”

The “T” describes the overall time of the movement. As we’ve seen throughout this post, easier is better. The smaller the “T” value is, the more likely a visitor is to do the action (like click the “add to cart” button”).

The “D” describes the distance to the target. So if the mouse pointer is at the bottom left of the screen and a button is at the top right, the distance is large. The larger the distance, the more it takes to do the action, and the less likely a person will perform it.

Finally, the “W” is the width or size of the target. This should make sense to you. A big button is much easier to click than a tiny button. I would also modify this to include the clarity of the button (a high contrast button is easier to click than one that fades into the background).

In summary:

A small “T” (time) on important actions is good for conversions

A small “D” (distance) is good for conversions

A large “W” (width/size) is good for conversions

When “D” is small and “W” is large, “T” will be small, so focus on those two factors.

Applying Fitts’ law to your sales: To apply the law, you want to make it as easy as possible to click buttons that lead to conversions (e.g., download buttons, opt-in buttons, add to cart buttons).

To do that, you want a small “D” and a large “W.”

When someone loads a page, their cursor usually hovers around the middle of the page. Therefore, you want your important buttons to be near the middle to minimize the distance of their travel on the page.

Secondly, you want your button to be large enough so that it’s obvious that it’s an important thing to click. Choosing a contrasting color is also a good idea.

Look at the button on this Google Chrome download page:

It’s large enough to stand out, and it’s right in the center of the page.

Most visitors would click the button before they realize they’ve done it, which is exactly what Google wants.

7. Decisions are difficult, sometimes we just want reassurance

When you know exactly what you want, a decision is easy.

But when a decision is a bit tougher, and they often are when it comes to buying a product, you might not be sure if you really want or need it.

That’s when you look to others for an opinion.

It could be an expert on the product; it could be a close friend; or it could even be a stranger. You’re looking for social support and help with your decision.

Social proof relieves anxiety: Social proof is a concept used by businesses to sell more. It consists of making it clear that other customers (ideally well known ones) use and like your product.

There are many ways to use social proof effectively. You can test and try different combinations of them to see what works best for your business.

To start with, if you have a large customer base, you can simply highlight the number of customers you have, like Basecamp does:

Or like Content Marketing Institute highlights the number of social followers they have:

Alternatively, you can post reviews and testimonials of happy customers on your sales pages.

These carry a lot more weight when a potential customer knows from whom they are coming. Try to get some recognizable names in your niche when possible.

These are best used when you have a complex product or service that leaves your customers unsure of whether it’s a good fit for them.

One final thing to consider is that social proof doesn’t always increase conversion rates (although it usually does). You should test each type in multiple ways to determine the optimal use of social proof for your business.

8. There are two sides to every customer, know when and how to speak to both

Have you ever read about a successful conversion optimization experiment, tried to apply the results, and failed miserably?

It happens all the time because no two businesses are exactly the same.

They differ in many ways, which is why what works for some businesses won’t work for others.

There’s one aspect of potential customers in particular that produces drastically different buying behaviors.

And it can be explained by the dual process theory.

From my understanding, this hasn’t been proven yet, but it is by far the leading theory of how our brains make different decisions.

It states that there are two main forms of processing in our brains:

deliberate thinking (conscious)

automatic thinking (unconscious)

While you probably have a good idea of what each system is, let’s define things a little better.

Deliberate thinking is slow, takes a lot of mental effort, and usually ends with a logical decision.

But the unconscious is different. Automatic thinking happens without effort and is pretty much going on all the time.

Researcher Daniel Kahneman also says that this unconscious system falls on the emotional side of decision making. Ever get that “gut feeling” about something? It’s not exactly logical, but it influences your decisions.

Note that system 1 refers to automatic thinking in the above picture, and system 2 refers to deliberate thinking.

Optimizing your business for dual systems: Your first step is to identify which system your target audience predominantly uses.

If you’re selling super simple products, like combs or spoons, choosing a product is not going to be a tough decision requiring much conscious thought.

Therefore, the vast majority of your customers will primarily be using their automatic processing system.

Alternatively, if you’re selling complex products like computers or cars, almost every decision will be based on the deliberate system.

Finally, there are customer types that are in-between. It may be a no-brainer decision for some of your customers, but others will make a decision based on a lot of consideration. Here, you need to optimize for both systems.

Optimizing for automatic thinkers: This type of thinking goes side by side with simplicity. It harmonizes with the other principles we’ve looked at such as the law of past experiences.

There are a few ways to appeal to this automatic, instinctual type of thinking:

Use pictures! They make us feel emotions

Keep messages simple

Focus on main benefits, not technical details

Keep user experience as simple as possible. Make “buy” buttons and opt-in forms large and clear

Optimizing for deliberate thinkers: To optimize for deliberate thinkers, you need to include full details about the product.

A logical decision is built around answering the question of whether or not the product is worth the money.

Here is a good example: Nathan Barry makes the contents of his courses very clear on his sales pages.

Then, he goes into detail about why each part of that package is valuable and why it adds to the overall value of the course.

Overall, you want to be able to load your sales pages and ask yourself:

If I were a potential buyer, would I have all the information I’d need to comfortably make a decision?

Conclusion

Learning more about psychology is a great way to improve your marketing and sales results.

I’ve shown you 8 principles today that you can use to increase your sales, but there are many more.

Start by trying to apply 1-2 of these principles to your business, and slowly add more.

If you have any questions about how to apply any of them, I’m happy to try to help. Leave a comment with as much detail as possible so that I can provide some useful direction.